


Stay With Me

by javajunkie



Category: The Queen's Gambit (TV)
Genre: Beth x Benny, F/M, Post-Series, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-09
Updated: 2020-11-09
Packaged: 2021-03-09 06:08:58
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,385
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27466207
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/javajunkie/pseuds/javajunkie
Summary: Several months after Russia, Beth finds Benny in her doorway.
Relationships: Beth Harmon/Benny Watts
Comments: 30
Kudos: 562





	Stay With Me

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first time writing anything for The Queen's Gambit, so here's to hoping nothing is too OOC. I hope you enjoy!

In the wake of her Russian win, Beth found contentment at the seat of a battered chess board, the usual spectators in their suits and horn-rimmed glasses replaced with heavy overcoats and _ushankas_. In that crowded Russian park, the cold wind whipping against her face, she was brought back to hours spent with Mr. Schiable in the Metheun basement. Back when it had only been about the game and not the useless pageantry that seemed to only grow with the esteem of the venue. She still beat them all. That hadn’t changed.

When she returned to the States, it was a flurry of activity with interviews and invitations to speak at this engagement and shake hands with that diplomat. She even received a special commendation from President Lyndon B. Johnson, but she didn’t particularly enjoy any of it, the entire process feeling laborious. The problem was, she didn’t have anyone to enjoy it _with_. Alma had always been with her before, and after her mother’s death, she had effectively sunk all other relationships and she hadn’t quite had the time to repair them before her so-called national tour started. She talked to Benny here and there, but it stalled somewhere between congratulations and asking her what was next. Beth could sense that he was hesitant to push things farther, and she was equally hesitant to try herself, which made it all the more surprising when he showed up at her door in Kentucky.

It was almost half a year after her Russian win and the national curiosity had tempered enough that she had been home for just over three months without interruption. Beth had come home from the grocery store and she braced the heavy brown paper bag against her hip as she walked up to him. She hadn’t seen him since before Russia, and she noticed that his hair was shorter. His usual black leather duster was traded in for a leather vest over a simple t-shirt for the Kentucky summer heat. He still wore the same worn-in jeans but, thankfully, appeared to have retired the holstered knife. 

Nervous energy coursed through her as she asked, “Benny, what are you doing here?”

She had a pretty good idea, considering Kentucky wasn’t exactly a prime destination on its own, but she needed to hear it from him. Her heartrate picked up in anticipation.

“Just in the area,” he said evasively.

For such a remarkably gifted chess player, he was a terrible liar, and Beth couldn’t stop herself from pressing him with, “In the area for what?”

She knew for a fact there were no tournaments happening, since she, herself, would have received an invitation, and Benny swallowed hard, no doubt weighing his options, before he said, “The Kentucky state fair.”

“The Kentucky state fair?” Beth repeated. “You’re here for the Kentucky state fair?”

He nodded. “I figured I’d stop by on the way. Say hello.”

It was incredibly stupid, and it struck her that somehow Benny Watts, with all of his swagger and bravado, was spinning some story about going to a state fair to see her. All of it made her want to cry and laugh at the same time because she knew she sowed the seeds of his insecurity, but also he was here standing in her doorway, after so many nights of her wishing for the same but being too afraid to ask, and so she said, “Okay. I’ll go with you.”

“You’ll go with me?” he repeated, clearly surprised by this turn of events.

“Yes. To the state fair. I’ll go with you.”

Benny looked confused, likely because he had no idea if there actually was a state fair nearby for them to go to, and she handed him her keys and asked, “Can you get the door for me?”

“Yeah, sure.”

He unlocked the front door and she walked in with him following. She had a million questions going through her mind, but she didn’t ask any of them. Instead, she set her grocery bag on the kitchen table and began to unpack it. Benny was quiet, uncharacteristically so, watching her put away the groceries and then she turned back to him and said, “Are you ready?”

He nodded and they walked back outside to embark on the road trip to Louisville that neither of them had planned on taking that day. But they did, and when Benny parked in a field in front of the fair after being directed there by a cantankerous older man in a cowboy hat, he sat stock-still at the wheel for a moment before looking over at Beth and saying, “I probably could have said this before we just drove an hour, but I’m not actually here for the state fair.”

She smiled slightly. “I figured.”

“I panicked. Which, I never used to do. But, since…” he trailed off, shaking his head. “I don’t know how to do this. I’m not used to feeling like this.”

“Feeling like what?” she asked gingerly, although she knew what he meant. She remembered how it had felt when she first met Townes and the rush and terror of feeling parts of herself so entirely unmoored. She had been more prepared for it with Benny. Less scared. However, it seemed Benny hadn’t been.

Benny looked over at her, face open, and said, “There has not been a day that has gone by that I haven’t thought of you, Beth. Not a single one.”

His hand rested on the console between them and Beth hesitated before reaching forward and covering it with her own. He turned his hand over and interlaced their fingers, his thumb running along her knuckle. There was still a lot that needed to be said, but Beth decided there would be time for that later. Right now, they had a state fair to go see.

And so, they got out of the car and headed toward the fair, and as they walked Benny captured her hand with his again, and he didn’t let go. They shared a funnel cake and demonstrated surprisingly poor hand eye coordination during a series of ring-toss games. On the drive back, Beth realized it had been one of the best days she’d had, and they hadn’t played a single game of chess.

When they returned home, he followed her up the steps to the house without the need for an invitation, and then up to her bedroom. It seemed things would go a certain way, but both were tired from the day and too much sugar, and they fell asleep instead, her body tucked against his beneath the covers. Beth woke up somewhere in the early morning hours and she listened to the steady course of his breath until she fell back into a dreamless sleep. Some hours later, sunlight filtered into her bedroom from the half-open blinds and she began to stretch, inadvertently ramming her elbow into Benny.

“Ow,” he mumbled.

“Sorry,” she said, turning on her side to face him. They were almost nose to nose now, and she felt her breath catch at the closeness of him. Although they had slept together before, something about this felt more intimate. There had always been a casual feeling to what they had done before, but this felt purposeful. _Meaningful_.

A bit of his hair had fallen down below his brow and she reached forward and smoothed it away from his face. His eyes bore into hers and she moved even closer, close enough to brush her mouth against his, but she held back, eyes searching his and she murmured, “I’m sorry.”

“I know. I’m sorry, too.”

And then he kissed her, and it felt better than any one of her wins. He pressed her back against the mattress and she wrapped her arms around him, pulling him close. It had been almost a year since they were last together, but their bodies remembered. When they were finished, she rested her head on his chest feeling an overwhelming sense of contentment.

“You can stay here as long as you want,” Beth said. And when that felt too casual, she looked up at him and said, “I want you to stay.”

He smiled slightly before he said, “Okay.”

She rested her head back on his chest and closed her eyes. “Okay.”


End file.
